WITHOUT RAONIC, IT’S AN UPHILL FIGHT FOR MEDALS
It’s on Bouchard and Pospisil-Nestor doubles pair to make way to podium
Vasek Pospisil was happily talking on Thursday about his practice session with Daniel Nestor, the doubles tennis legend who will be his Team Canada partner here.
They felt good, they felt ready, that kind of thing.
“What about the singles?” a reporter asked. “You have a tough draw.”
“I haven’t heard who I play yet,” Pospisil responded.
“Monfils,” came the reply. That would be Gaël Monfils, the 11thranked Frenchman who rolled over Pospisil in straight sets last week in Toronto.
“Monfils?” Pospisil said. There was a brief, but weighty, pause. “Yeah, it’s tough. I played him last week, yeah it’ll be tough. It’s tough.” So: tough. The 26-year-old Canadian from Vancouver was then asked about the experience of the Olympics, how it compares to a regular event, you know, your basic rote inquiry.
Pospisil started to respond, then stumbled.
“Sorry, could you repeat the question? I’m really sorry, I’m surprised I’m hearing this for the first time right here,” he said, still a little staggered to have discovered that his run in the singles begins in a match against a world-class player who is in on good form. It will be, yes, tough, and with Milos Raonic having opted not to come to Rio, it means Canada’s chances for a medal in singles play at these Games are not looking particularly strong, not when Pospisil, who was in the top 30 in the ATP rankings after a run to the Wimbledon quarters last year, has endured a tough season that has seen him almost drop out of the top 100.
Pospisil did allow that he started his match in Toronto against Monfils well — which was true, the first set went to a tie break — before he “let the second set get away from me a bit.” True, that: Monfils won it 6-0. So at least Pospisil knows where to improve on Sunday.
On the women’s side, Eugenie Bouchard will face Sloane Stephens in the first round. “That will be Canada versus USA,” Bouchard, 22, said with a big smile.
She has known the American since they were junior rivals, and although Stephens has risen to 20th in the WTA rankings, they have a 2-2 record against each other, with Bouchard winning their last match this year at Indian Wells.
“I give her the utmost respect and I just want to battle for Canada,” Bouchard said.
After the disaster of her 2015 season, when she plummeted from seventh in the WTA rankings to 61st, the Montrealer has had a decent bounce-back season. She has climbed back into the top 40, and already has won 26 matches in 2016 against only 11 all of last year. It’s not the heights of her Grand Slam run in 2014, but she has at least shown signs of that kind of play. And though she waited until the last minute to commit to the Canadian team, with the U.S. Open looming at the end of the month, Bouchard said she was quite happy to have made the trip.
Team Canada’s leaders, she said, including chef de mission Curt Harnett, have been “really nice and welcoming.”
“Curt, you know, he has a hugonly policy, so you know we met him and within three seconds we were in a full bear hug and I was like, ‘OK, this is going to be a good two weeks’.”
Bouchard was quick to say that, yes, this already feels totally different than any other tour event. She has hundreds of teammates and they are all walking around the Olympic Village in the same clothes.
“It’s just this cool atmosphere that I don’t get too often,” she said.
Bouchard will also play doubles alongside Gabriela Dabrowski, but it is in the men’s doubles that Canada has probably its best medal shot. Nestor, with 90 doubles titles, including eight Grand Slams on his resume, won an Olympic gold 16 years ago in Sydney with Sébastien Lareau. He has played a lot with similar doubles-tennis warhorses, but in Pospisil he gets a big-serving young guy. It has the potential for a complementary set of skills, and the pair has won before playing together in the Davis Cup.
“I think we have a decent chance at a medal,” Nestor, 43, said on Thursday after his session with Pospisil. “That makes it more special and right now everything is going well.”
The Canadians are ranked seventh in the men’s doubles draw, so they should be good for at least a couple of wins. And from there?
“As I said, 15-20 teams could win a medal here in doubles and we’re one of them,” Nestor said. “And we’ll see what happens.”
Bouchard also wasn’t afraid to drop the m-word.
She wants to play well, get some wins behind her, just like another other tournament. Get some momentum, see what happens. Harnett will be there for hugs either way.
“We don’t have points (to earn),” she said, “but we have medals at the end of the draw, so that’s the goal.”
Fair enough. She’s managed podium-type finishes before.